Blue Screen Summer
Maya's thumb hovered over the screen, heart doing that stupid flutter it always did when *his* name popped up. The iPhone 14 she'd worked all spring at Smoothie King to afford glowed in the darkness of her room.
u coming tonight? pool party at Jake's
She'd been waiting for this text since seventh period. Chase, the boy whose smile made her forget basic English, was finally noticing her existence.
She tapped back so fast her fingers slipped: yesss!! wouldn't miss it
The pool party was everything May Instagram posts were made of – twinkling lights strung across the backyard, floaties shaped like pizza slices and flamingos, music thumping from someone's Bluetooth speaker. Maya stood by the edge of the pool in her new bikini from Urban Outfitters, feeling exposed despite the two layers of sunscreen.
"Maya!" Chase materialized through the crowd, water dripping from his hair. "Finally. I've been looking for you." Her stomach did a backflip. "Saved you a spot on the inflatable couch."
The inflatable couch. This was happening. This was ACTUALLY happening.
She stepped onto the floaty, and for twenty perfect minutes, everything was electricity and laughter and Chase's knee accidentally brushing hers. Then came the moment that would live in infarity – she reached for her iPhone to document this milestone for her story, and her elbow hit the giant pizza floatie next to her.
Her phone slipped. Time moved in syrup-slow motion. The iPhone hit the water with a tiny splash and immediately sank to the bottom of the five-foot end.
"NO!" Maya shrieked, suddenly moving without thinking. She launched herself off the floaty and started **running** – no, sprinting – through the water, sending waves crashing over everyone in her path. Jake's cousin got a face full of chlorinated water. Someone's drink went flying.
She reached the bottom, fingers grasping for her lifeline, her connection to everything, and surfaced with the dripping device in her hand like some hard-won treasure from a pirate shipwreck.
Chase was laughing. Not mean laughing, but doubled-over, can't-breathe laughing. "Did you just full-on sprint through the pool for your phone?"
Maya looked down at her ruined iPhone, the screen flickering with ominous blue lines. Then she looked at Chase, still laughing, water sliding down his ridiculous perfect jawline. And she started laughing too – the real kind, the kind that makes your stomach hurt.
"Worth it," she said, holding up her short-circuited phone like a trophy. "Totally worth it."
Later, they'd sit on the pool edge, feet in the water, while he helped her try to rice-rescue her phone. But in that moment, Maya realized something: maybe her iPhone wasn't the only thing worth running after.